1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a broadcasting system and more particularly to a multimedia recorder with recorded program management functions based on EPG data, a TV receiver provided with such a recorder, and a system for supporting such functions in a broadcasting equipment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, in digital broadcasting systems, at least one broadcasting station broadcasts a transport stream (TS) defined in MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts Group II) standard. The transport stream (or a physical channel) includes a plurality of (logical) channels in a time-division-multiplexed form. Each logical channel includes many programs. Each program comprises at least one video subchannel, at least one audio subchannel and/or at least one data subchannel. Program specific information (PSI) and service information (SI) on each program are frequently inserted in the TS.
Such digital broadcasting systems usually provide far many channels as compared with analog broadcasting systems and accordingly an enormous number of programs. This makes channel or program selection difficult. In order to facilitate program selection, information on programs is transmitted as EPG (Electronic Program Guide) enabling the subscribers to select a program to watch and to program a VCR (video cassette recorder) to record a desired program by displaying a program schedule and selecting the desired program through a remote controller.
If one of the recorded programs is to be played in conventional video recorder such as a VCR, then the user often takes a lot of time to find a desired one of recorded programs recorded on recording medium. The user may even forget the programs he or she recorded in a recording medium. In this case, the user has to search the recording media to see what programs are recorded on the recording media if he or she has not made notes at the recording times.
The invention is directed to solving this and other problems and disadvantages of the prior art. It is an object of the invention to provide a digital multimedia recorder that makes good use of EPG data to have at least one of the following capabilities of:
(a) selecting a program to be played from a displayed program guide for recorded programs;
(b) including, in the displayed program guide, program information on programs relating to each of the recorded programs thereby to permit the user to program the recorder to record a selected one of the related program;
(c) recording a plurality of programs broadcast at the same time;
(d) record a multi-channel program whose channel configuration changes in the middle of the program so as to support the capability (a); and
(e) playing a recorded program within a limit prescribed in a contract with a provider.
Generally, information on programs such as EPG is referred to as xe2x80x9cprogram information.xe2x80x9d Hereinafter, it is assumed that the program information includes information necessary for extracting a desired program from the received TS""s, information on each program, information on related programs, if any (which are related with each program), and information on recommended programs which a broadcasting party recommends to the subscribers.
According to one aspect of the invention, a method of managing recorded programs recorded in a recording medium in a broadcasting system is provided. The broadcasting system comprises at least one transmitter and a plurality of terminals. Each transmitter broadcasts a data stream. A plurality of channels is multiplexed into each data stream. Each channel comprises a plurality of programs. Each transmitter includes, in the data stream, program information on the programs available in the broadcasting system. Each terminal permits a user to select a desired one of the programs; adds the selected program to a recording queue which keeps program-identifying data sets in order of broadcast start time; records on the recording medium a program identified by one of the program-identifying data sets in a first position of the recording queue; records a program information record of the recorded program in a predetermined area on the recording medium; in response to a reception of a playing request from the user; displays a program guide for the recorded programs recorded on the recording medium; prompts the user to select one of said recorded programs for play; in response to the user selecting one of the recorded programs, plays the selected recorded program to provide video and/or audio output(s).
According to another aspect of the invention, a multimedia reproducer for reproducing recorded programs recorded on a recording medium is provided. Program information comprising program information (PI) records associated with said recorded programs is also recorded on the recording medium. The multimedia reproducer comprises: means, responsive to a reception of a reproducing request from the user, for displaying a program guide for the recorded programs and prompting the user to select one of the recorded programs for play; and means, response to the user selecting one of the recorded programs, for reproducing the selected recorded program.